At a glance...

ilomilo review

We’ve mentioned this many times before, but at Gamescom 2010 there was one game that stole our hearts and that was ilomilo, a cute puzzle platformer which hooked us with its extreme cuteness and challenging levels. Since last summer we have been on the lookout for a release date from developers SouthEnd Interactive, and now it's out on the Xbox Live Arcade. Will it live up to our expectations set by our previous experience? Find out below.

The basic gameplay is simple. You control two characters, ilo and milo, and in each level your objective is to get them to meet up. This fairly simple premise is trickier than it first appears. Each level consists of a series of blocks that these two characters can walk along, but instead of just walking along the top, all six sides are available to you with little bridges transferring you from one side to another. The other key concept to ilomilo is the ability to pick up specific blocks. Initially this allows you to cross gaps that you wouldn’t normally be able to, but the further you get into the game, the crazier these become. For example, one block can expand into three times its size, another will flip you onto the reverse face of the block. You control the two characters, one at time, switching between them at the touch of a button. There will often be times where you need to do this in quick succession to pass blocks between each other. These add layers of increasing complexity, resulting in some fairly challenging levels, all of which require you to take a step back and think.

Finding a solution is only the first step, though. There are numerous pickups scattered throughout each of the puzzles that often require you to go out of your way to acquire them. These include concept art and original music from the game, all of which go into your gallery. A third type of pickup adds points to a meter that appears on-screen; collect enough of them and you get a little snippet from the game’s story. These are very reminiscent of Braid’s puzzle pieces, giving you insight into the narrative of the game in one or two short sentences.

So by now you’ve realised that there’s plenty here to offer with a surprising amount of different puzzle mechanics, but the cherry on top of the ilomilo cake is its presentation. ilomilo is a very charming game, from its art style to its soundtrack. The basic premise, getting the characters to meet, is made all the more rewarding after the intro for each of the game’s worlds. It chronicles Ilo and Milo’s journey to meet each other in the park and their subsequent adventure. This takes place over four worlds, each with their own personality; park, underwater, paper and night. ilomilo’s random sense of humour is apparent throughout; each of the loading screens has its own message describing some wacky element in the world. In some of the levels, a character named Sabastien will appear after stepping on his block who will come out riding his... well, we don’t exactly know what it is, but he’s always ready to offer you some advice. There also seems to be a weird obsession with hats (Did you know that Sabastien has 73 hats and the world's largest garlic?). All of this gives ilomilo its own quirky charm, something we immediately fell in love with when seeing it in Germany.

On top of all of this, Southend Interactive have provided a co-op mode too, but unfortunately, here lies the game’s one misstep. Instead of providing you with a unique set of puzzles to solve together, ilomilo lets you take on the same levels you played in the story co-operatively, and they’ve missed out here. Those who have already played it alone will have nothing to gain by playing it co-operatively, and those who play it for the first time co-operatively will have to play it all over again in story mode. Gameplay-wise, each player controls one of the two characters individually, meaning that the switch character button now also means a switch of player. When not directly controlling a character, players will have a cursor which they can use to point out areas on screen, handy when helping to solve puzzles, but useless if they’ve already completed the puzzle before. Additionally, in what is the most bizarre feature we’ve ever seen, pressing two of the buttons will make two musicians appear on screen who will play a quirky tune whilst your co-op partner is in control. Whilst this gives it its own quirky personality, overall the multiplayer seems like a missed opportunity to deliver some unique challenges for two players.

There are numerous other little extras hidden away; completing levels will give you a score with the number of moves that you made. This is compared with the community, showing you the community average and community best scores. This gives you an incentive to play again to try and beat some of these scores. On top of this, about two-thirds of the way through the game, you get to unlock ilomilo Shuffle, an 8-bit style mini-game where you have to give up collectibles without falling off. Again, this feature is tied to the community, so there’s always the incentive to try again.

The most curious part of ilomilo has been its release schedule; originally slated to launch some time in the Autumn, it was delayed after being ported over to Window Phone 7 in order to be an exclusive title to those in the US. It resurfaced again at the beginning of the month in Microsoft’s "Games for the Holidays" promotion. Whilst the game has been officially released today (5th January), it has actually been available for purchase from within the first and second games of this promotion. On top of all this, a hidden URL on the developer's website allowed a limited number of people to download a trial code which then allowed you to unlock it immediately. All of this amounts to the most confusing release schedule ever and something that the game could have done without.

This confusion aside, ilomilo is a fantastic game and at 800 Microsoft Points (£6.80), it’s available at a great price. The lack of any new levels in the co-operative challenges is a small blemish and something that could be rectified with downloadable content in the future. If you’re still not convinced then we recommend that get a hold of the free trial where we’re sure that you too will fall in love with this charming and quirky game.

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